Back in the days when retro-bikes weren't retro; dirt was almost an assumption if you rode anything other than a Harley, and a lot of HDs spent time offroad. The "heros" in On Any Sunday were mostly dirt guys; Brown's footage of them carving up the dunes was as good as the surfers carving up the waves. Not to say the roadrace stuff wasn't cool too; but we all wanted dirt bikes.

Then somebody got brained by a giant staghorn fern hanging from a tree in an orange grove and decided street bikes would be a better choice.

Back in the days when retro-bikes weren't retro; dirt was almost an assumption if you rode anything other than a Harley, and a lot of HDs spent time offroad. The "heros" in On Any Sunday were mostly dirt guys; Brown's footage of them carving up the dunes was as good as the surfers carving up the waves. Not to say the roadrace stuff wasn't cool too; but we all wanted dirt bikes.

Then somebody got brained by a giant staghorn fern hanging from a tree in an orange grove and decided street bikes would be a better choice.

That's what it was like in high school in the late '90s for me and some friends. Sure we liked streetbikes, but the clapped out '70s 100-200cc enduros were the way to go.

That's what it was like in high school in the late '90s for me and some friends. Sure we liked streetbikes, but the clapped out '70s 100-200cc enduros were the way to go.

When I started riding (1964) the Japanese wave was building and scramblers began outselling street models at least 10 to 1. I saw Honda 250/305 Scramblers everywhere and maybe saw 2 or three Superhawks. Every street model had a scrambler variant and the scramblers out sold the street one by a magnitiude. This dirt dominance kept going for years.

The reason it's waned are twofold. One- the envronmentalists want to close all public lands and have managed to close a lot. Two- The main reason is the increasing age of the average biker. Like it or not the majority of motorcycle riders are baby boomers. People like to pretend that only Harley is affected but that's a complete load. As the baby boomers age and die off all the bike manufacturers are going to be hurting. When I was a kid it seemed like everyone wanted a bike. Now they want tatoos and Ipods. They'd rather play a motorcycle video game than ride one. The Golden Age of motorcycling is here. It's all downhill now.

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"Make no mistake, Communism lost a big argument - one we know today as the 20th century."

You got it Seru. It's dang near impossible to sell a motorcycle these days but if you put your used iPhone on eBay it sells for $500.

I've got a Best Buy and an Apple store near me and you'd be amazed at the tubby, tatted, dorks who line up outside the doors waiting for it to open every day. (Well the Apple store is skinny, tatted dorks).

I mean, "your Avatar" is more important than a real personality these days.

They'd rather play a motorcycle video game than ride one. The Golden Age of motorcycling is here. It's all downhill now.

I enjoy playing video games, but an exciting fun video game is boring in comparison to even the most boring *real* ride on an actual motorcycle. If the kids these days only knew what they were missing. And if they had parents that would actually teach them about manual transmissions and hand clutches etc...

My son is 2 months old, I'm already toying with the idea of buying a Shadow 750 or GS500 so he'll have something to learn on in 14-15 years as far as a street bike goes. I'll have him and/or my daughter on a dirtbike as soon as they can pedal a bike.